I'm a big fan of Gary Larson, perhaps even the bigest. My favourite is the one when the little Visible Man, who is transparent with all organs, blood vessels, etc. showing through, breaks out of a toy store feeling free and full of optimism yet has no idea that he is about to repulse the world with his visible innards.

Alright has been in use since the 19th century. It is the same contraction as altogether and already but, for some reason, it's still frowned upon. But, of course, horrible inconsistencies in the English language are the rule.

It always irks me that we quibble over words like this but our kids are still saying "ain't got no."

john (the guy with four English teachers in his life including his mom)

OH WHAAA I'm a gifted student too. Learn to laugh at yourself! I think these are hilarious!

All together we will henceforth be spelling drunk D-R-U-N-C-K because it's altogether too good to pass up. Are we all ready for a good laugh, already? Everything will be alright when the words are spelled all right!

Was hoping you were referring to that Far Side cartoon before I scrolled down to it! One of my favorites of all time. :-)

And, sorry, have to disagree with the argument that "alright" is the same contraction as "altogether" and "already." Altogether is not (at least not anymore) a contraction for all together, in that "all together" and "altogether" are different parts of speech that mean different things. For instance, if I wrote "We are altogether" you would think "altogether what?" -- whereas "we are all together" is a complete sentence in itself. Ditto already, e.g. "We have already finished our exams. We are all ready to graduate." So even if "alright" perhaps *should* be a word in the way that altogether and already are, by analogy, it would actually not mean "all right."

Quit whining about "alright". It is in both Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com dictionaries; therefore, it exists. Both sites have a "note" stating that the term is mostly informal but not incorrect. John is 100% correct.

It's fair enough to use it colloquially on a blog. Perhaps a bit ironic in a post that's critiquing grammar, but still fair enough.

I used to use it all the time until my editor beat it out of me. It shouldn't be in the formal prose of a book. Even so, a book based on a blog is probably allowed to be more colloquial than a novel. The humour frequently necessitates it.

Now I shall return to writing my characters, who say "all right" but also many other words you would not use on this blog. :D

WV magnity: the baker left the iron spoon in the batter so the cake came out all magnity.

That Far Side cartoon has always been one of my favorites; thanks for giving me another reason to smile!

Regarding the "Teaher Appreciation"cake, don't you know that there's a large faction of people who believe that grading with red pens is detrimental to student's morale? There's been a campaign going on for a few years now to convince teachers--sorry, "teahers"--to grade with purple pens!

Last time I checked, the English language and its rules weren't set in stone. Look at the word "ain't". Roughly a century ago, it was a word that even polite society used in lieu of saying "am not". These days, it's looked on as an uneducated expression. Every so often I hear that "whom" will become an archaic expression and it will always be "whom". Not wanting to rant, just wanting to point out that only languages that don't want to survive never alter.

The irony of the 'Spelling Bea' cake is that I have seen an advertisement for 'Aunt Bee's Recipe Book' on a site dedicated to memorabilia from the 'Andy Griffith Show'.

I'm surprised Glendale didn't have a 'bigest looser', given how popular the lose / loose transposition is.

What, no 'to /too' mix-ups? That's to bad. Granted this post is about spelling, not grammar, but a missing (or less commonly, extra) 'o' also counts as a spelling error. That's just an observation, mind -- I'm not about to tell J&J how to run their blog.

I have a feeling after seeing these many teachers will want to join that drunck club lol. Scary where they decide to put C's. I suspect whoever made the drunck cake was imbibing the entire time lol. That spelling bee cake was rather pretty, if not the spelling part. And I happened to love yesterday's post :).

So it strikes me that quite a few of the cake wrecks come from Kroger/Wal-mart/Megastore bakeries.

However, the cakes you feature on Sunday Sweets are always fancy, professionally made cakes by individuals or smaller baking companies.

Why not give a shout out to the megastore bakers that do a really great job churning out cakes with impressive, evenly-spaced, correctly-spelled frosting goodness? Just an idea, because I know quite a number of bakers at those places that are really good at what they do.

In the sense of "we are all together," the two sentences "We are all right" and "we are alright" do NOT mean the same thing. The first means "none of us is (or are) wrong," and the second means "we are in good condition."

As for the phonics hater, the sound of the letter "c" has rules, and in "worced," it has to be an "s."

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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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